Helicopter rescue in Sardinia, forbidden night and the sea galore

The document is armored in the undergrowth of confidential protocols. The director general of the Department of Health, Giuseppe Maria Sechi, the councilor of the time, Luigi Arru, transmits it with a lot of electronic date, 11 April 2016. The junta in charge is that of the professors, led by Francesco Pigliaru. The letter has a heavy object: Regional technical group for the realization of the regional helicopter rescue service. The communication has been completed. It is a document unknown to most, in many ways even to the members of the committee themselves. It is no coincidence, in fact, that the premise is to be resolved without unanimity: decisions taken by a majority of those present. The content is explosive, given that those indications were literally distorted once the tender specifications were written and the tender was announced.

Private business first

The first point of the Group is entirely contractual, as if doctors and emergency technicians had to deal with the convenience or otherwise of private individuals to participate in the tender. The paragraph is written in peremptory terms: «1) extend the duration of the tender from 3 to 5 years. In fact, it has been estimated that a shorter duration probably would not find the interest to participate on the part of companies that provide the helicopter rescue service ». The concern of the group is the interest for companies to participate in the tender. A worry that must have pervaded the regional offices if it is true, as it is true, that the tender in the end provided for a duration of service of even eight years. It will cease, barring twists and turns, in 2026. A not insignificant element given that it started from a duration of three years, then passed to 5 years according to the proposal of the technicians and, finally, a hand along the way has led to almost double the years, given that there are, in addition to the eight provided for in the contract, also hypotheses of extension.

The basics rise

The contract therefore distorts the already questionable indications on duration, but it is the subsequent indication that arouses more surprise, that relating to the number of bases and helicopters. The general director of the department, who personally coordinated the technical committee, writes to the Assessor: "2) provide a base with H12 service and one with a H24 service". So, two bases and two helicopters. Even that indication will be overturned in the tender notice. It goes from two to three helicopters, from two to three bases. With a consequent new outlay for the public purse, without any real advantage for the service, on the contrary. The final indication of the Technical Committee, then, relates to the location of the two helicopters: they propose a 12-hour base, operational only during the day, in Cagliari, and a 24-hour base, even at night, in the Olbia airport.

Long knives

The last paragraph of the letter is for the long knives within the body established by a council decree: "In any case, we inform you that the Technical Group has considered allocating the base in Ardara-Mores for the northern area, or Nuoro. These proposals were minority ”. What happened next is all written in the tender, with a lot of direct intervention in the procedure, as we found from the wiretaps, of the number one of Leonardo, Alessandro Profumo, head of the state company that produces helicopters. A letter arrives on the table of the President of the Region, certainly not greetings and salamelecchi. The tender will be upset with costs that grow out of all proportion, all to the detriment of the service.

20 minutes

The state directives on helicopter rescue require the helicopter to act on a defined "primary" intervention not exceeding 20 minutes from the alert. Since the distress call arrives at the operations center, the helicopter must be able to reach the patient in at least 20 minutes. A compass is enough to make a twenty minute radius on the map. The result is disarming. The dislocation that is decided is entirely aimed at the three airports in Sardinia, Olbia, Cagliari and Alghero. A choice that constitutes the largest waste of public money on the helicopter rescue game, with a service that is increasingly lacking in terms of real coverage of the air emergency service.

Waste at sea

One glance at the map of the current state is enough to realize that most of the helicopter's twenty-minute range is positioned at sea. The speech applies to all three helicopters, without exception. All this with two incontrovertible data: from the cost of positioning in airports, with 5-star luxury hotel rentals for helicopters, up to the activation times of the service, given that the emergency procedures must wait for both take-off and landing. of airliners. Times that become vital and lethal depending on the take-off clearance, which never happens vertically, as it should be for helicopters, but always along the runway of airliners. The document we are in possession of on take-off times from individual airports is covered by confidentiality. The data that emerge, however, are of unprecedented gravity.

Slow take off

Last August 1st, for example, the first flight of the month, involved an intervention in Loiri Porto San Paolo, a distance of not even 20 km from Olbia airport. The alert was given at 10.02, taking off took 14 minutes. On 2 August the alert is launched from Lanusei at 9.06, take-off from Cagliari takes place after 48 minutes. It does not change on August 3 from Cagliari. The alert is at 5 pm for intervention in Lanusei, take-off takes place only after 25 minutes. On the same day, the alert is at 3 pm for intervention in Ovodda, in the province of Nuoro. Take off from Alghero airport takes 13 minutes. Of course, there are days in which take-off takes place even in two minutes, but this confirms that having deployed the emergency response helicopters in the midst of civil and scheduled air traffic risks seriously jeopardizing the effectiveness of the intervention.

Ogliastra outside

In the current configuration, then, as can be seen from the first map, a large part of Ogliastra and a part of Oristano are totally cut off from the 20-minute radius. These are precisely the areas furthest from the two emergency hubs of the Brotzu of Cagliari and the Santissima Annunziata of Sassari. It would have been enough to displace two barycentric bases day and night, with respect to the orography and the number of inhabitants, to cover the whole of Sardinia, with more efficiency and less money destined for the ravenous demands of helicopter companies. And, instead, to date, three years after the helicopter rescue competition, we continue to pay lavishly for a helicopter enabled for night flight, that of the Leonardo, stationed in Olbia, which cannot land in either of the two emergency hospitals, nor in Sassari let alone in Cagliari. It would have been enough to build 2/3 helibases in central locations in Sardinia, see simulation number 3, to cover the whole of Sardinia and save the cost of renting the airports. The new bases would pay for themselves in less than a year. The Brotzu pitch in Cagliari that in recent days we have given as set up for the night landing has actually never been used because it is not authorized. A scandal. The tender was announced on 10 October 2018. The works were awarded on 13 February 2019: construction of the lighting system of the Brotzu helipad for adaptation to night flight.

Brotzu off

Almost three years have passed and those "light bulbs" have never been authorized, in spite of rescue and urgency. What's more: a tender was also held for day and night assistance for fire prevention, management and maintenance of the helipad of the “G. Brotzu ”for a period of three years. To date still no night flights. Penultimate detail: on 3 September Areus paid Airgreen, the helicopter rescue company sentenced by the Antitrust to a fine of over 4 million euros for the fire-fighting cartel, bimonthly invoices: one million and 600 thousand euros for 60 days of flights. Including the night flight that nobody does.

Executives that go

Last note: Giuseppe Maria Sechi, the general director of the Health Department at the time of the helicopter rescue contract, the one who wrote that only two helicopters and a five-year contract for the helicopter rescue company were needed, is no longer in Sardinia. He was appointed medical director of the Lombardy emergency facility. He became the right-hand man of Alberto Zoli, the Lombard manager who in the telephone interceptions on the helicopter rescue in Sardinia had exclaimed to his interlocutor: "I don't give a damn ... to take the best car". After all, the contract was for the Sardinians and Sardinia.

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